Chapter 4 - The Shadow of Victor
The room was silent except for the low, rhythmic blowing of the wall unit.
Nicole woke up when the heavy oak door clicked open. Her small hands immediately tightened around Buddy’s collar, her eyes wide and dark against her pale skin as she watched the tall man in the charcoal suit enter.
Buddy’s head lifted from the mattress. The dog did not growl. He let out a low, soft whine, his tail giving two slow, hesitant thuds against the metal frame.
Daniel Sterling stopped three feet from the edge of the bed. He pulled off his gold-rimmed spectacles, tucked them into his breast pocket, and slowly dropped down onto one knee so his eyes were level with the child’s.
"Hello, Nicole," Sterling said, his voice dropping into a warmth that Erin had not heard out in the hallway. "Do you remember me?"
Nicole looked at him for five long seconds. Her thumb moved over Buddy's ear, back and forth, back and forth.
"You're the man with the silver pens," she whispered.
Sterling’s mouth twitched into a small, genuine smile. "I am. The man with the silver pens. I used to bring you those lemon candies when you came to the office on Boylston Street."
"Mom told me you were dead," Nicole said flatly.
The words landed in the small hospital room with the weight of cold iron.
Sterling didn't flinch. He kept his eyes steady on hers. "Your mother was trying to protect you, Nicole. She was very scared. But I am not dead. And I have been looking for you for ninety days."
Nicole pulled Buddy’s head a little closer to her chest. "Mom’s truck broke down near the lake," she said, her voice small, mechanical, as though she were repeating a lesson she had memorized through endless repetition. "She said she had to go get the part from the man in the blue shirt. She told me to stay in the cabin with Buddy until she came back."
"Which lake, Nicole?" Erin asked softly, stepping up beside Sterling.
"The one with the green trees," Nicole said. "The cabin had no lights. We burned wood in the black stove. Then I got hot in my throat and I couldn't breathe good. Mom walked me to the big road and a man in an ambulance brought me here."
"Did your mother come into the ambulance with you?" Sterling asked.
"No," Nicole said, shaking her head. "A red car pulled up behind us. A man got out. Mom told me to get into the white truck with the blue lights, and she went to talk to the man in the red car."
Erin felt a cold drop of sweat trace its way down her spine. "Did you see the man in the red car, Nicole?"
"He had bright shoes," Nicole whispered, her fingers digging deeper into Buddy’s fur. "Like the shoes Dad used to wear when we lived in the big house."
Sterling stood up smoothly. The warmth disappeared from his face in an instant, replaced by a stark, terrifying calculation. He turned to his paralegal, who was standing by the door with her tablet.
"Claire," Sterling said, his voice dropping into a whisper that barely reached the bed. "Contact Detective Miller at the State Police Special Investigations Unit. Give him the GPS coordinates of every rural rental property within a thirty-mile radius of the Worcester city line."
"What are you thinking, Daniel?" Claire asked, her fingers hovering over the glass screen.
"Victor didn't come for the trust money," Sterling said, looking out the narrow window at the dark parking lot five stories below. "He knows he can't touch the funds without my signature. He came for Sarah."
"Why Sarah?" Erin asked.
May you like
Sterling looked back at the small girl on the bed, who was now leaning her head tiredly against Buddy’s flank.
"Because six years ago," Sterling said quietly, "Sarah Vance was the primary witness who gave the Federal Bureau of Investigation the encrypted ledgers that sent Victor to prison for eight years. And Victor Vance is not a man who forgives a debt."
